


Wake Up

by Sunel0



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Kind of mental issues, M/M, Magic, T is for Tara dying in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunel0/pseuds/Sunel0
Summary: Stiles had screwed everything up. So now it was up to Stiles to fix it.To wake Theo up.
Relationships: Theo Raeken/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> Re-using an old tumblr post of mine (I can't find it, thanks, tumblr) with the scene that stuck in my head ad turning it into, well, this. Enjoy! :3

Theo was not waking up. Stiles didn’t know how or why this happened and that wasn’t even the point.

The point was that Theo was not waking up. Obviously.

Well, okay, maybe Stiles knew how and why this happened. It might have been a mistake. Possibly on his part. There was a chance that he screwed with magic he should have never even thought about touching, but he is a curious fellow, he just wanted to try it out, it seemed so intriguing and new and shiny, and the book was simply left there, unattended, begging to be read and put to use, and who was he to stop himself from new experience and much-needed practice while things were quiet? Plus, he didn’t ask anyone to get involved, he was going to be fine by himself. And, anyway, it was a week ago, why would anyone remember that? It was going to be all right.

Except it really wasn’t, was it? Stiles’ tender pale fragile human body wouldn’t have survived the blow, so Theo’s surprisingly dumb and rushed and absolutely not thought-through intervention was suspiciously resembling something divine.

And still.

All of this wasn’t the point. Yes, Theo’s not-so-human body survived it.

But the point was that Theo was not waking up.

And Stiles couldn’t just wait around anymore. It’s been so long, he wasn’t even sure how long exactly anymore. The whole fucking week or month or whatever of Deaton chewing him out for getting where he wasn’t supposed to go and telling him that they need more research before they take any action to try to fix the damage. The whole fucking week or month or whatever of Scott trying to be supportive but failing miserably because he can’t seem to be able to find his love for humanity for Theo now. The whole fucking week or month or whatever of Malia weirdly circling around like, well, a coyote waiting to attack. Of Lydia being as sympathetic as she could and so beyond annoying. Of everyone walking on eggshells around him and being very judgmental at the same time, since it has been his screw-up that landed Theo wherever he was now.

From where he was not waking up.

And Stiles just missed his boyfriend. The irritating little touches all the time. The just bearable heat nearby at night. The random ridiculous flirting, the occasional research session, the snark remarks, the constant bickering and confusing fights about nothing. Just the generally calming and kind of infuriating presence. Hell, even the little face Theo made when he was confronted with the need to eat rabbit. Stiles didn’t know what the story was, but he knew for sure there was one, and he very much wanted to figure it out. And he would be damned if he didn’t have the chance because of his own inability not to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.

Because Theo was not waking up.

Stiles had screwed everything up. So now it was up to Stiles to fix it.

To wake Theo up.

That’s how he found himself on the floor in front of Theo’s bed on his knees, lighting up candles, with the same fucking book beside him. If Theo wasn’t coming to him, he was coming to Theo.

For a moment, Stiles looked up at the bed. Theo was there, unmoving, breathing slowly, seemingly asleep. Like he had been the whole week or month or whatever. Not waking up. Not reacting. Just breathing. So peaceful – so unnatural for Theo. Peaceful was not his thing, even asleep, and seeing him like this was heartbreaking and deeply annoying. Why did he get to be so calm and almost cozy in a way while Stiles here was going crazy with worry and nerves and guilt?! How did he manage to get on Stiles’ nerves by just lying there? For once, lying as in inclining his body in a horizontal position, not the other definition. It must be some kind of special talent one gets born with. And Stiles was going to put an end to it.

He grimaced at Theo. He wasn’t going to enjoy his peace for long now, the bastard.

Stiles took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second, then put the book on his knees and started the ritual.

***

When Stiles opened his eyes, he was in his own old bedroom, except it looked weird. Most of it was the way he left it when moving out, but some things seemed out of place, like his old toy snakes collection, some plushies and actual baseballs. Stiles picked one up. He had not seen those since… well, since he last actually played baseball. It seemed so long ago… Why were these here all of a sudden? Why was Stiles here? He couldn’t remember. He was sure he had something important to do. He looked at the ball, rolled it in his hands and smiled softly. The last time he touched one of these was just after Theo moved away…

And then it hit him. Theo. He was trying to wake Theo up. And he was in Theo’s room, using the magic he wasn’t supposed to go near trying to fix his mistake.

But how did Stiles end up in his old room? And why did it have things he threw away years ago? It was so strange, like how he even got there from where he was? Was this a part of the ritual? Looking closer, this place definitely looked like a mix of two different time periods, how was this even possible? Well, Stiles guessed, it was magic, but still. What did all of this mean? Why was he in this particular place? Did he accidently throw himself out of timeline or something? But then why those two periods exactly?

Suddenly, a laugh came from behind him. He spun around, heart pounding, instinctively moving in the direction of his baseball bats. There were both the old wooden one and the newer metal one at the same time but it also somehow looked like there was only one of them, as if they merged together but stayed two different objects in a way that hurt his brain to look at.

“Stiles, that’s honestly the worst thing you’ve ever came up with,” that snapped Stiles’ attention right back. He saw Theo sitting on his table, arms crossed, a frown on his face. But Stiles heard a laugh...?

“Theo,” he made a step forward. But Theo wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at… Stiles?

“Well, it’s not like we have anything better, huh?” he watched himself move frantically around the room doing… something. He did remember this talk, and he did remember packing things up, but right now there was nothing in the hands of this other-him. That was weird.

But then something even weirder happened. Behind Theo, also on the table, Stiles finally noticed two much paler figures, kind of transparent, two kids putting up something on the window. Then one of them turned around and jumped _through_ the Theo sitting on the table.

“And this still doesn’t mean we should go with it, we still have time to come up with something” Theo also jumped off the table and moved toward _his_ Stiles.

“Stiles, wait!” and only then Stiles realized that the kids on the table also were he and Theo, but much younger, maybe around eight or something, and he – meaning, the little he – just ran away in the direction of the door, laughing – the present-Stiles absentmindedly noted that this must have been what he had heard before – and… disappearing into thin air? What?

Stiles watched the little Theo ran and disappear after the little Stiles, tuning out the argument of the older versions. He frowned, confused. What the hell was going on? He watched as new figures appeared in the room, mostly more real-looking older Stiles and Theo, sometimes someone else, but also ghost-like little figures, running around and laughing, rarely making actual sounds. Stiles watched a little Scott skip in his direction and vanish. What was all of this? Those seemed like memories of things that happened in this room, and the more recent ones looked to be more life-like, while the older ones were barely visible sometimes.

But he was absolutely sure he remembered some things differently. There were many where the memory-Stiles did totally random movements while the present-Stiles knew perfectly fine what exactly he was doing at that moment. So… those were Theo’s memories? Was he inside Theo’s consciousness?

Was he that chaotic from Theo’s point of view? And it was kind of throwing him for a loop to hear his own voice and see himself from an outsider’s perspective.

Okay, this did sort of make sense. The way Lydia translated the what little information they had about the ritual, it was kind of a thing to deal with “Sleeping Beauty situations”, as she put it. It was their best bet, but they didn’t really have much else to build on, so Deaton insisted on finding something about what they know a bit more. But most of the other things from the book had worked fine, the last one was actually an honest mistake, and Stiles was so done with waiting and feeling guilty. And he wanted his boyfriend back, as simple as that. 

So now he could only desperately hope that he did everything right. Also, there was the question of figuring out what to do with this assumption and how to find the real Theo. Rolling the ball in his palm one last time and then putting it into the pocket of his hoodie, Stiles slowly made his way out of the house, watching all Theo’s memories connected with this place play out in front of him. He even saw Theo having conversations with his father a couple of times but didn’t stay to look – all of this seemed like a huge invasion of privacy as it was, he didn’t want to make it worse, no matter how tempting it was to eavesdrop a little.

Stiles still stumbled a bit when a little ghost-like Theo ran at him at the front door. There was something sad about how barely visible some of the childhood memories were and how they all vanished into the air like they were never there. Which was not true – all of them were right here, all at the same time, all happening as long as Theo was able to remember them even a little. 

Closing the front door behind him, Stiles took a deep breath. The air was weird. It felt crisp as if it was freezing outside and kind of full of static electricity and even smelled like ozone, but when Stiles looked up, he didn’t see any sign of a storm, the sky was an even grey colour. Which was also strange – he was sure he had seen sunlight shining through the window when he saw the first childhood memory. The weather was… nothing. It was a comfortable temperature, and everything was light grey and mild, and there wasn’t even a smallest whiff of wind. It was very… neutral and as if with a tiniest bit of haze over everything.

Stiles turned to walk in the general direction of the centre of the town. He didn’t know where to go yet. Where could Theo be? The only thing he had was that he appeared in his old room. Considering the amount of memories connected with him he had seen all over the house, he would assume that this place was the most connected to him, at least in Theo’s mind. So, if he uses this logic, he had to understand what place would be connected with Theo himself the same way.

While he was walking down the street, Stiles got distracted by a sudden smell of a freshly baked bread. He was walking by a bakery. It was lit by what seemed to be warm spring sun, and there was some indistinct movement inside. The bell jingled as the door was thrown open, and another little Theo ran out with a brown paper bag in his hands, beaming. Tara walked out right behind him.

“Theo, would you wait a second?” she was trying to keep up with an exited seven-year-old while also putting her wallet into her backpack and closing it.

“Come on! These are Stiles’ favourite! I want to get there while they are still warm!” Theo turned around, walking backwards, smiling up at his frowning sister. Stiles didn’t hear Tara’s answer – the memory faded away just to start again slowly only a couple of seconds later. This memory was surprisingly clear and still visible for such an old one. It seemed to be a good one, but it made Stiles feel somehow uneasy anyway. Knowing both Tara and Theo’s fates ruined even a happy thing.

Stiles began to walk again, turning the baseball in his pocket. Strangely, it didn’t disappear when he walked out of the room, but he assumed it would, eventually. If this was a mind-space and it worked the way Stiles figured it did, things were supposed to go in their places.

So what was Theo’s place then?

Well, the most logical guess would be his room in their new pack house. Except it didn’t really cut it, did it? It wasn’t that it was really new, they had moved in almost half a year ago, it was that Theo was the only one who still hadn’t really made his room fully his own, he didn’t have anything but his clothes there, nothing very personal, no little knick-knacks or pictures. He didn’t seem to be able to actually own a place, he didn’t know how to accumulate things, how to make a room to his liking. He just didn’t see his living spaces this way. Stiles thought that this was because he hadn’t had a chance to learn these things while surviving and moving from place to place. Only the bare minimum, the most needed stuff, easy to pack, easy to replace. The room just wasn’t personal enough.

Then what place in Beacon Hills would be Theo’s personal space? After all, he hadn’t actually been in the town for that long after he came back, had he? Stiles had his doubts that any place he lived in on the Dread Doctors watch could be it. Anything connected to lacrosse was a pass straight away. It might have worked for some people, but team spots had never been Theo’s actual thing, always more of a necessity. And definitely not the school.

So that left Stiles pretty much with places from their childhood. He watched a shadow of nine-year-old Theo bike up the street beside him. And those were the skate park and the Raekens’ house. And as much as Theo had loved the park once, Stiles didn’t think it was personal too. It wasn’t Theo’s space the way Stiles’ old room was his, not a somewhere Theo belonged.

With that thought, Stiles headed for the Raekens’ house. Now he noticed little inconsistencies in the layout of the town. It seemed so much smaller and some places were not where they were supposed to be. He lived farther from school, as he noted walking past it, not stopping to watch all the memories and weathers and scents and sounds overlapping and running over each other – it made his brain hurt too much, he had to avert his eyes and make his steps faster. 

It was interesting and entertaining in a way to watch some random scenes play out in front of him. Some of them felt like little anecdotes while others made him look away because they were too personal. Generally, all of this had an undertone of invasion into privacy to it. Stiles tried to ignore it. He had a goal. He had to wake Theo up, and now that he seemed to have some semblance of a plan, he wasn’t going to back off.

Weirdly enough, Stiles felt almost peaceful now, walking through this grey town. Maybe it was a possibly false feeling of getting close, or just the overall atmosphere of this strange almost dream-like space. He chuckled. Perhaps that was why Theo looked so calm in his bed back in the real world.

After walking for some time (it was hard to track time here, Stiles had no feeling of it, it could have been a minute or an hour), Stiles realised with a startle that he had already reached the more secluded and green neighbourhood where Theo’s childhood home was. The way he remembered it, the house wasn’t as close to the forest as it seemed to be here, but Stiles wasn’t sure which version was more correct. Probably Theo’s, he had obviously spent more time here.

And the closer Stiles got to the house, the more memories he saw running all over the place, giving him a migraine. He saw Theo in different ages, Tara, their parents, their other relatives and friends Stiles didn’t know, himself, Scott, some other kids from school, Theo’s fake parents and even the Dread Doctors. So many things, all so loud and bright and different, and seemingly more clear than anywhere else in the town. Stiles could barely bear it all. And it got only thicker the farther he went.

Okay, this seemed like a good confirmation of his theory. He just had to push through and deal with the chaos and noise and the images and the way all of it layered over itself made his brain melt.

Stiles focused on his breathing. Breath in, breath out. Eyes on the only unmoving part of the house – the weathervane on the roof. Step. Breath in. Eyes fixed. Step. Breath out. In. Step. Out. Step. He had to wake Theo up. In. Step. So loud, so bright, someone going through him, changing lights, changing seasons, the absolute mash.

Eventually, he couldn’t see the vane anymore. Luckily, he was almost on the little path to the front porch. But the chaos of memories got only worth here. It was a mayhem. Or possibly hell. Stiles’ personal little torture for screwing with things he shouldn’t have touched, for being nosy, for not listening, for getting into others’ business.

Putting his hand on the doorknob, Stiles could barely open his eyes because of all the colours and lights and all this visual assault. The heating wasn’t much better. His brain was absolutely not able to cope with this. It was too much, it was beyond overwhelming, he couldn’t process too much information.

He remembered Theo’s room being the one straight across the stairs on the second floor. And the stairs were to the left from the entrance.

God, he wasn’t even completely sure Theo was actually in there.

As soon as the door was opened, Stiles had to put hands over his ears and shut his eyes tight. For a minute, he couldn’t even move. Even the smells were too much.

Breath, he had to breath. In. Hold. Out. Hold. A step forward. He could feel the wall next to him with his shoulder. Now he could only hope _his_ memory wasn’t playing tricks on him.

He stumbled and fell on his knees when he reached the stairs.

Okay. If he ran, he could at least reach the room faster. He didn’t know it wouldn’t get worth in there, but it was his only thought in his head right now. He had to hold to something.

Otherwise, his head was going to explode.

So Stiles ran. Almost falling over a couple of times, he didn’t stop until he crushed into the door. The sound wave that hit him when he put his hands down to rip the door open almost blew his eardrums up.  
He slammed the door shut behind him. His ears were ringing. He was scared to open his eyes. He leaned against the slightly cool wood of the door.

The first thing that came back was the smell. It smelled faintly like sweets and something fruity with a bit of dust in here. It was almost soothing after the rest of the house.

“Stiles?”

For a second, Stiles didn’t understand anything over the ringing. But then he stilled. This voice. Stiles opened his eyes slowly, blinking a couple of times, still afraid of the possible visual attack. And saw a ten-year-old Theo in front of him, looking at him cautiously from his bed where he was sitting cross-legged with a little notebook in his lap. He seemed to be totally real, not even slightly memory-like.

And other than him – there were no one there. And it was quiet.

“Stiles? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You… I think you better go. Or he’ll hurt you,” Theo was getting more and more worried, putting his notebook to the side and standing up on his knees but not getting up from the bed.

“Theo? Who… who will hurt me? Why?” Stiles stepped closer and kneeled in front of Theo now looking a bit up at him, focused only on his round child face. Theo sat back on his heels, worry in his wide eyes.

“You should really go,” he repeated.

“Why, Theo? Who will hurt me?”

“He will,” Theo pointed with his little finger somewhere behind Stiles. He looked over his shoulder. The door was open (but he had shut it?) and on the threshold was sitting a wolf. It turned its head to the side, watching Stiles and the little Theo, its yellow eyes not angry or agressive but rather cold and distant.

Stiles turned back to Theo. “Why is it going to hurt me?”

“He hurts everyone. He’s terrible. He hurt Tara, and he hurt other people, and he will hurt you because he likes hurting people,” now Theo was almost crying, his lip wobbling.

Stiles tried to sound as confident as he could managed. He took Theo’s little hands in his. “Listen, Theo. I don’t think he really likes it. I think he just doesn’t know he can do things differently. I’m going to talk to him, okay? He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“But…” Theo’s blue eyes were searching his, so worried, so scared and lost. Stiles had almost forgotten that back then they were just clear blue.

“I promise you. I’m going to be fine. Alright?” he squeezed Theo’s hands. It was a peculiar feeling – having such small hands in his.

“Okay,” Theo whispered finally after searching Stiles’ eyes for some time seriously and silently, pulling back and reaching for his notebook, still so worried, tears still in his eyes. “You promised.”

“I know,” Stiles smiled at him, aiming for reassuring, stood up and turned to the wolf. He also stood up.

“Hey,” Stiles stretched his arm toward the wolf and made a little step forward. The wolf backed a bit. And then some more. And then some more, until he spun around and sprinted off as if Stiles was going to attack him. That wasn’t the behaviour of someone who was willing to purposefully hurt Stiles, was it?

“Wait!” he ran as fast as he could, trying and failing to keep up with an animal. When Stiles reached the front door, the wolf was out of sight.

Where could he go? Stiles spun around trying to come up with anything. Now he was lost again. The wolf was smart, he could go hide anywhere in the town.

Stiles tried to think the way Theo could. The wolf was the Theo he was looking for, right? It didn’t seem likely that there would be a random black wolf hurting people just hanging around Theo’s consciousness. 

And then it struck him. The house was quiet. There were no memories, no chaos around, just stillness.

This place was so weird. Was this how dreams worked?

Suddenly, he heard a door slam somewhere upstairs.

“I’m done! I’m out!” a young female voice yelled, and then there were loud fast steps, and then Tara marched right past him and out of the house, unintelligible shouting following her from somewhere in the house.

Right. Tara. The little Theo said that the wolf had hurt Tara. And he knew how his Theo felt about her.

So Stiles headed for the bridge. He was sure the wolf was the Theo he was looking for. And it would be actually surprisingly like him to go watch the memory of his sister dying over and over and over again, lost inside his own mind, fixated on what was possibly the worst moment of his life, one of his lowest points.

Having some time to think while he walked, now for some reason unbothered by any memories, although some were bound to be here, Stiles found it strange to actually see an almost physical confirmation of his own thoughts, to see that the Theo he had once known was still there, quite literally, hidden inside this new Theo's consciousness. Maybe if he only managed to convince the little Theo to accept the wolf, then Theo would be able to finally find his peace with himself and start to heal. They were the same person, after all, and Stiles didn't think that the fact that there were technically two of them here was very healthy. And the little one hiding away in his room, scared, wasn’t healthy for sure.

Again, the distances here had nothing to do with reality. He reached the bridge in less than five minutes, and he knew that really it should have been at least fifteen, if not twenty.

And there the wolf was, curled up right in the middle.

“Theo…” Tara whispered with her blue lips, reaching in his direction. He whined quietly.

Stiles walked over slowly, and when the wolf didn’t even look up at him, sat down beside him, not touching but feeling his warmth.

“Hey,” he watched as Tara slowly succumbed to the cold and went under water completely. “You don’t have to hurt yourself like this, you know?”

The wolf Theo turned his ear slightly, eyes not leaving the last bubbles on the water. Stiles decided that he couldn’t actually watch it, so he sat with his back to the scene, now facing Theo.

“I know you hurt. I don’t know if you ever get even close to forgiving yourself. I don’t know if you should, I don’t think this is forgivable, and I’m definitely not a specialist. But you can’t just sit here forever, torturing yourself,” he carefully placed a hand on Theo’s back, slowly moving it down, getting almost distracted by the feeling of the fur.

Those were not the right things, were they? He got one shot at this, and his mind was blank and racing at the same time, not being able to stop on any one thing.

Behind him, he heard a stifled yelp and a splash. It was quieter than the expected.

“Theo, I know it’s hard. But you are alive, and you even have people who care about you now, despite what you did and what you think, and now you should do the same. To start honestly care about yourself despite what you did, and I’m not talking about dumb complex induced hyperfixations, I’m talking about your actual life,” Stiles didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t have time to prepare. He had no idea if any of it was even close to what Theo needed to hear. He tried to remember what the little Theo had told him. The wolf Theo looked up at him.

“I love you, and I know you don’t trust yourself enough, but for now you’ll have to trust me then. I’m sure you won’t hurt me. Or anyone who you shouldn’t hurt. At least on purpose,” his brain felt somehow swollen suddenly. There were no trace of the calm and peace he had felt earlier. He was so exhausted after all the waiting and research and looking for Theo. He had to wake Theo up. He had to find a way to convince him somehow. Even if he needed to lie a bit, he was willing to do it. He looked into the yellow eyes, trying to convince his mind to work.

“Theo…” Tara whispered behind him.

“Sometimes you have to just hang in there for a while. I understand it hasn’t been easy, but now you can finally get actual help. Look how far you’ve come already, with the pack, with people. With me. As soon as Morrell comes back, you will even get professional help, you know. Theo, it will get better,” okay, now he actually had no idea what to say. What was he supposed to do? He should have waited and done some more research. He wasn’t even sure he can get out of here himself now. Theo cocked his head to the side. He felt like crying. He couldn’t shut up on his best days, why did his brain short circuit all of a sudden in such a crucial moment? 

“I don’t know what I’m even saying, but I know that you have to get out of here, Theo, we need you. I need you,” he took a deep breath. Well, he was completely out of ideas. Theo was still looking at him wistfully. 

“I love you,” Stiles whispered. He heard a yelp and a splash. He closed his eyes and threw his head back against the banister. He felt like he was falling asleep. He was so bone-tired from the constant chase that his life had been for a while now. He just wanted his boyfriend back. “Please, wake up.”

“Theo…” Tara whispered again.

Stiles barely registered Theo move and shift beside him. He was too tired.

“Stiles?”

That made his eyes open. He saw Theo’s greyish-blue eyes looking at him. Human eyes.

And then the world went black.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Don't forget to leave kudos if you liked it and comment if you are up to it:3 You can find me on tumblr [under same name](https://sunel0.tumblr.com):3  
> [Also the post with this fic on tumblr](https://sunel0.tumblr.com/post/612147279011479552/wake-up) if you'd like to reblog it:3


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